Manufacturing growth rose marginally in April, reveals Nikkei PMI
2 May 2018 5:24 PM GMT
New Delhi: India's manufacturing sector activity improved marginally in April, driven by rise in new business orders amid favourable demand conditions, amid easing inflationary pressures, says a monthly survey.
The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), rose from 51.0 in March to 51.6 in April, indicating faster improvement in the health of the country's manufacturing economy than in the prior month.
Inflationary pressures moderated for the second month in a row, with the softest increases for input costs and output charges reported since September 2017 and July 2017, respectively, the survey said.
Meanwhile, expectations of interest rate cuts have been mounting on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the wake of declining retail inflation and the need to fuel growth momentum.
In its first bi-monthly monetary policy for 2018-19 last month, the RBI had left the repo rate unchanged at 6 per cent. The MPC maintained the status quo for the fourth consecutive time since August last year.
This is the ninth consecutive month that the manufacturing PMI remained above the 50-point-mark. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction.Greater production requirements stimulated job-creation and encouraged companies to engage in input buying.
Next Story
